This is the website/blog of Philosopher Stephen Law. Stephen is Provost of Centre for Inquiry UK, Senior Lecturer in philosophy at Heythrop College, University of London, and editor of the Royal Institute of Philosophy journal THINK. He has published several books (see sidebar). His other blog is THE OUTER LIMITS: http://www.centerforinquiry.net/blogs/blibnblob
For school talks and media email Stephen: think-at-royalinstitutephilosophy.org

16 comments:

Rough overview but this is a Jesus historical one. For God's existence he usually plays to his updated version of Kalaam's Cosmological argument. From memory the slides he uses are generally bullet point in content.

Bayes Theorem on a slide entitled "Ehrman's Egregious Error", in his debate with Bart Erhman (intending to gesture at Earman's "Abject Failure" response to Hume on miracles). Blindsided the guy a bit. Don't expect civility from Craig.

Personally, I'd like to see more people pointing out that Craig is a Christian evangelist and noting how far his various arguments go towards making Christianity sound reasonable. Considered as arguments for evangelicalism, the Kalam falls to Hume, the moral argument to Craig's disgusting position on genocide, and so on. Craig calls his opponents out for being off topic when they try this ("we're arguing about moral ontology, not about the Bible") and to the extent that they're off topic for the particular argument, he's right. Nevertheless, Craig's 5 ways finish with an altar call for Christianity, so it's fair to point out that even if you accept the earlier arguments, you should find a better God than Craig's :-)

"even if you accept the earlier arguments, you should find a better God than Craig's"

And you don't find one, which I think is an important point. Refutations are very powerful in that you can build up all the reasons you like for an idea but if the idea doesn;t work out then you have to abandon it. Modus Tollens (if x then y, not y so not x) sort of "trumps" everything else. Even to the extent that were you to have a purely deductive argument for x, if x falls to a refutation then you must conclude that you got your deductive reasoning wrong.

Stephen's Evil-God argument is one such refutation, whilst all Craig's arguments do is try to show that a belief in God is reasonable. But I don't think it matters how reasonable a belief is if it is evidently false.

Craig's argument against the Evil-God is likely to be an attack on the basis that it is arrogant to "tell God what to do" (I've seen a video where he makes this exact argument). I thought of a great Powerpoint slide to counter that. Start with a valid argument on the slide (eg "Socrates is mortal") and then anaimate in another premise:

Stephen Law is an arrogant tosser

Then ask the audience whether it's brought Socrates back to life!

Of course the "telling God what to do" is bollocks, reporting on what someone did is not "telling them what to do". It might be judging, but then Craig (and others) are equally judging when they say "God's a nice chap".

(BTW I think the Kalam falls at the very first premise. Why "everything that begins to exist has a cause"? Why not "everything after the Big Bang"? Or, getting all Kantian, "everything that can be experienced by rational creatures"? Or any of the infinite number of metaphysical principles that will fit the observed facts. The answer is, of course, that only the one used results in a conclusion of God's existence. So the Kalam argument chooses the premises to fit the conclusion. I don't see the need to give it the time of day after that.)

I haven't a clue ~ I'm sure you'll destroy the guy though ! If I may make a small observation: WLC is unconscious of his surroundings ~ he just zips through his script at 100mph. He doesn't do changes of pace to suit the flow of the debate. He's inflexible, charmless & a boor. WLC can't charm because he isn't interested in other people & their lives.

He doesn't care

Hitchens is the opposite ~ the first 5 mins of any Hitch video is a joy to watch as he establishes a link with the audience, the venue & the question at hand. Dan Barker is good in the same way.

Hitchens & Barker will not let the opposition control the speed or subject matter of the debate

Not a great debate (don't watch it all), but instructional stylistically. Please compare the cadence & the audience engagement skills. Turek delivers as if scolding a child who is short on understanding, while Hitch credits the listeners with intellect & mature levels of empathy ~ he includes them

Turek opening @ 5:22Inept, weak, poor joke & gets 'shouty'

Hitchens opening @ 28:40Virginia. Beautiful 'Family Guy' dig at Turek which works well with a student audience. Controlled delivery. Good timing. Perfect gaps.

True, by nearly all explanatory virtues, crags hypothesis fails to qualify for the best explanation. Dawes "theism and explanation" is a great start. Commonsenseatheism has a great summary series of the points in that book as well as an interview as well on his podcast "conversations from a pale blue dot"

the git always goes first (ALWAYS) then spiels off 20 arguments to define the debate - you answer ten, he points out the ten you didnt answer + two more, you are always on the back foot from then on. Don't fall for it - GO FIRST, insist

He is the master of appeals to authority, especially to biblical scholars - any argument you put forward will be not supported by "the majority of biblical scholars", like they get to vote of the truth.

He has no shame.

Don't be precious about it, make a big list of quotes by theists that support your points and contradict his and use them.

And he will put words in your mouth "by implication Dr Law accepts this that and the other" - see the debate with the australian Slezak.

If you use the Jesus wasn't dead argument - he will argue that the Roman's were efficient, they killed him with the spear, all abit Gladiatorish, he had teriible wounds etc(thats why he only lasted a little while!). There are lots of stories of people in the 17/18th century being revived after hanging in England. Point out the people that have escaped from american jails, POWs from germany, the IRA landing a helicoptor in a Northern Irish jail, and that Rome was corrupt - how many gold pieces to turn the other way - no more than our police want to give the mobile phone number of a 7/7 victim to the News of the Screws.

Why did the apostles go along with the story, maybe some believed and maybe others went along for usual reasons, for the power over others, the women and money, yes money - they had everything in common, followers sold everything and gave it in trust to the apostles (and if they kept any back they dropped down dead).